Arthur Conan Doyle

March 24. The spring is fairly with us now. Outside
my laboratory window the great chestnut-tree is all
covered with the big, glutinous, gummy buds, some of
which have already begun to break into little green
shuttlecocks. As you walk down the lanes you are
conscious of the rich, silent forces of nature working
all around you. The wet earth smells fruitful and
luscious. Green shoots are peeping out everywhere.
The twigs are stiff with their sap; and the moist,
heavy English air is laden with a faintly resinous
perfume. Buds in the hedges, lambs beneath them--
everywhere the work of reproduction going forward!

I can see it without, and I can feel it within. We
also have our spring when the little arterioles dilate,
the lymph flows in a brisker stream, the glands work
harder, winnowing and straining. Every year nature
readjusts the whole machine. I can feel the ferment in
my blood at this very moment, and as the cool sunshine
pours through my window I could dance about in it
like a gnat. So I should, only that Charles Sadler
would rush upstairs to know what was the matter.
Besides, I must remember that I am Professor Gilroy.
An old professor may afford to be natural, but when
fortune has given one of the first chairs in the
university to a man of four-and-thirty he must try and
act the part consistently.

What a fellow Wilson is! If I could only throw the
same enthusiasm into physiology that he does into
psychology, I should become a Claude Bernard at the
least. His whole life and soul and energy work to one
end. He drops to sleep collating his results of the
past day, and he wakes to plan his researches for the
coming one. And yet, outside the narrow circle who
follow his proceedings, he gets so little credit for
it. Physiology is a recognized science. If I add even
a brick to the edifice, every one sees and applauds it.
But Wilson is trying to dig the foundations for a
science of the future. His work is underground and
does not show. Yet he goes on uncomplainingly,
corresponding with a hundred semi-maniacs in the hope
of finding one reliable witness, sifting a hundred lies
on the chance of gaining one little speck of truth,
collating old books, devouring new ones, experimenting,
lecturing, trying to light up in others the fiery
interest which is consuming him. I am filled with
wonder and admiration when I think of him, and yet,
when he asks me to associate myself with his
researches, I am compelled to tell him that, in their
present state, they offer little attraction to a man
who is devoted to exact science. If he could show me
something positive and objective, I might then be
tempted to approach the question from its physiological
side. So long as half his subjects are tainted
with charlatanerie and the other half with hysteria we
physiologists must content ourselves with the body and
leave the mind to our descendants.

No doubt I am a materialist. Agatha says that I am a
rank one. I tell her that is an excellent reason for
shortening our engagement, since I am in such urgent
need of her spirituality. And yet I may claim to be a
curious example of the effect of education upon
temperament, for by nature I am, unless I deceive
myself, a highly psychic man. I was a nervous,
sensitive boy, a dreamer, a somnambulist, full of
impressions and intuitions. My black hair, my dark
eyes, my thin, olive face, my tapering fingers, are all
characteristic of my real temperament, and cause
experts like Wilson to claim me as their own. But my
brain is soaked with exact knowledge. I have trained
myself to deal only with fact and with proof. Surmise
and fancy have no place in my scheme of thought. Show
me what I can see with my microscope, cut with my
scalpel, weigh in my balance, and I will devote a
lifetime to its investigation. But when you ask me to
study feelings, impressions, suggestions, you ask me to
do what is distasteful and even demoralizing.